


The Whole World is Singing Your Name

by beforethequeen



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Girls Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 18:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20086837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beforethequeen/pseuds/beforethequeen
Summary: On Aya's twentieth birthday, she hears the crowd singing just for her.





	The Whole World is Singing Your Name

**Author's Note:**

> For my fiance on his 28th birthday!

Aya is glowing, face pink and glistening with the efforts of singing and bouncing around on stage for the past hour, and her radiant white smile is stretched ear to ear as the crowd cheers her name, a rousing disjointed attempt at a “happy birthday” song floats from the excited and well-meaning crowd. 

Chisato can tell that Aya is nervous and embarrassed, her bare shoulders raised a little and her hands clasped together under her chin, but she’s thrilled, honored, and Chisato wonders if Aya can see that this is her dream: fans who love her music and love her, singing back to her after she has sang to them with everything she has. 

Aya is a true idol, loved by all.

Hina is the loudest voice on the sound system, leading the choir while Eve gently warbles a little harmony pulled back from the mic and Maya claps over her head to guide the crowd along a beat, but this is a fan-generated display of enthusiasm. Aya twirls on the platforms of her pink mary-jane heels, her rose hair whipping around. She bounces up and down and bows deeply as they crowd ends their song in a celebratory cheer. 

“_Thank you eternally_,” Aya cries, her eyes welled up. She waves with both hands as Hina bounces across the stage to gather her up and shuffle her off with the rest of them. The bright lights and wails of their fans fade into a distant echo as they retreat backstage. 

In the darkness, stagehands and managers flutter around them, unmiccing the girls and removing expensive pieces of their costumes for safe keeping. Chisato leaves her bandmates to handle the necessary debrief with management, and by the time she returns to the dressing room she finds that while every other girl is peeling off their sweaty dresses and pulling on cotton t-shirts and shorts, that Aya is standing in front of her duffle bag, still fully dressed with her shoulders hunched. Chisato tentatively touches a bare, slick shoulder and Aya jumps. When they make eye contact, those beloved pink irises are shining and wet. 

In a split second decision, Chisato squeezes Aya’s shoulder and guides her to walk out of the dressing room. They find themselves in a dark hall, where the red light of an Exit sign illuminates Aya’s glistening skin, from her forehead where she must have pushed aside her bangs, down her wet eyes, down her shining slim neck to her pale round shoulders where perspiration gathers in the collarbones right above the patchy redness of her heaving chest. Chisato looks her over in silence for a minute. Chisato would never allow herself to appear that affected on stage, but that’s one of those differences between them that Chisato savors, something about Aya that she respects the hell out and finds irritatingly attractive.

Chisato puts her hand on her hips and gazes up at Aya. “You truly do cry at the slightest provocation. I hope this isn’t a cry of despair, you’ll make yourself appear older.”

Aya frowns, a big pink pout on her pink face (_pink pink pink_, that color haunts her). “I’m not sad,” she says, and there is a warble to her voice that gives her away, “I promise I’m not sad, I’m… I can’t believe we’re here. I can’t believe we’ve done everything we’ve done and people still want more of us.”

Chisato sees it now, the clasped hands, the white knuckles, the tears threatening to spill out again––Aya is touched, overwhelmed, overcome with gratitude and the feeling that she’ll never be enough. Chisato frowns and reaches out too quickly, too purposefully. Aya flinches back and Chisato silently scolds herself for the way Aya always shies away from her. Aya has nothing to fear anymore and hasn’t for a long time. “Sorry,” Aya whispers and stays still (_stiff_), looking at Chisato expectantly. 

Chisato pauses a moment, composes herself, reaches out slowly this time and cups a palm along Aya’s cheek (_a gasp_) and thumbs away a rolling tear. 

“Oh, Aya,” she whispers, her voice low. “You performed your best tonight,” Chisato says, because she isn’t sure what she can say other than the absolute truth. 

Aya appears lost. Chisato can feel her trembling under her hand, her rosy lips parted but wordless, her pink eyes wide and wet and unblinkingly. She isn’t moving. She seems to be processing. “_I, I,_”

“Hush,” Chisato says as she brushes a hand over Aya bangs to lay them against her forehead and tucks a long loose hair behind her hot little ear, coming back to cradle her blazing cheek. “Everyone loves you. You were wonderful tonight, as always.”

Aya swoons, her body relaxing and she brings her hands to her face, knocking Chisato aside and she weeps into her hands. And now it’s Chisato turn to feel a little lost. She stands a foot from Aya, her hands numbly by her side as Aya cries. Chisato hasn’t cried in front of people since she started her acting career and was told such a thing would make her unprofessional and unlikable, and watching the vocalist cry openly makes Chisato feel embarrassed and numb. 

Through her hands, Aya tries to tell Chisato, “I wanted this so long, and now that it’s here… it’s _real_… on my twentieth…”

There is so much emotion bundle up in the birthday girl that Chisato thinks she might burst if she isn’t held together, and the blonde nervous opens her arms to move in, but Aya beats her to it, catching the single even through her tear filled hands and crashes into Chisato’s chest, presses her face into Chisato’s hair and cries into the locks just above her ear. She mumbles, “Thank you, Chisato.”

Chisato tentatively rests her hands on Aya’s waist, wrapping slowly around her and pulling the girl even closer, so their hips are fitted together through the twin blossoms of polyester and lace between them. Through the white noise that is buzzing through her head, she begins to hum a birthday tune aloud. She can feel the immediate response of redoubled-crying. 

_It’s true_, Chisato thinks as she feels Aya finally peel back, a little calmer now, and look down at her, their faces so close that Chisato can feel the echoes of songs sung tonight thrumming hot between the two of them, _everyone loves you_. 

Chisato lets her purple eyes fall shut and leans up on her toes to (finally, _finally_) press their lips together. The trembling in Aya seems to stop, but Chisato can hear her own drumming heartbeat in her ears. She does not have the time to feel embarrassed before Aya kisses her back, hands fisted ungracefully in her long blonde hair to pull her closer. When she pulls away she asks, shyly, a previously unspoken question they’ve been skirting around for too many years, “I guess that _everyone_ includes you?”

Chisato smiles, her whole body hot, and nods. “Happy birthday, my dearest Aya Maruyama.”


End file.
